State hopes to expand coal research

North Dakota State Roundup

North Dakota voters will decide next June whether to dedicate a portion
of the state's coal trust fund to clean coal research.

If that measure fails, then part of the coal tax revenue that normally
goes to the state's general fund would be earmarked for the lignite research
fund.

Those efforts to assure funding for coal research were made by the state
Legislature this spring even before it learned that the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) turned down a proposal for a clean-coal demonstration
power plant in Center. State officials had looked to the Center plant
to enhance North Dakota's important coal industry.

According to Mark Conrad, communications director for the North Dakota
Lignite Energy Council, coal is about a $1.2 billion industry in the state.
An average of 30 million tons of lignite, or low-grade coal, is mined
annually in North Dakota. At this rate, North Dakota contains an estimated
1,000 year supply.

An April 1993 study released by North Dakota State University reports
that in 1992, 3,384 people were directly employed by the coal industry,
with another 15,201 in secondary jobs. The industry also dumped $63.4
million into state coffers last year in the form of taxes.

At the forefront of the state's research efforts is the University of
North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC), which
attracted more than $20 million in fiscal 1992 in federal, state and private
contracts to conduct energy and environmental research for clients across
the nation and throughout the world.

Recently the EERC received a grant from the DOE for participation in
Combustion 2000, a program to develop a new generation of coal-fired power
plants by the year 2000. "It's a chance to be on the cutting edge of technology
that will be coming into play in the next century," says Pat Miller, the
EERC's communications coordinator. "There may even be a silver lining
in the rejection of the Center plant proposal," Miller adds. "Maybe we
need to look at something totally new."

Although the Center clean coal project was turned down, the DOE still
has uncommitted additional funds for other projects and North Dakota may
benefit in the future, says Clifford Porter, director of the lignite research
and development program for the state. Porter, who is also technical adviser
to the Lignite Research Council and North Dakota Industrial Commission,
points out that 40 percent of coal produced or consumed in the United
States comes from west of the Mississippi River, but 80 percent of DOE
funds have gone to the eastern United Statesa statistic he'd like
to see change.